On Tuesday, December 31, 2002, at 10:37 PM, Nelson Helm wrote: > If it doesn't matter whether the application is in Applications (Mac > OS 9)[folder] or Applications[folder], why have both?
Here's an answer that's probably a lot more pedantic than you had in mind. I just started typing and kept on going and going... There are four types of programs that can run under X: (1) "classic" applications; (2) "carbon" applications; (3) "Cocoa" applications; and (4) "Darwin" applications. The classic applications require the Classic environment to run because they use stuff available only in Mac OS 9 or earlier. These are the ones that cause Classic to launch when you double-click them. They were written for Mac OS 9 or earlier and are supported as legacy applications. Quark Xpress is the poster child for these programs. The carbon programs are written to use a special set of libraries called CarbonLib. These libraries are glue that allow routines to work the same way in both 9 and X. This means the program will run almost the same under both 9 and X and does not require Classic to run with X. The latest versions of AppleWorks are carbonized as is Toast 5. Strangely, the Finder in X is a carbon program, although it will not run in 9. The Cocoa programs are written to run only in X, and use the Aqua graphics interface and other stuff that Apple has added onto BSD. Good examples of Cocoa programs are OmniWeb and Chimera -- my Web browser of choice. The Darwin programs are pure BSD Unix programs that are generally run from the command line, or in the X-Windows environment you can graft onto Mac OS X. (Remember the X in X-Windows really is an "ex" and the X in Mac OS X is a 10.) They're called Darwin programs because that's the name Apple gave to its open source BSD kernel. Hundreds of these are available for free from the Fink project (fink.sourceforge.net). Most of them are the same open-source GNU programs you see in Linux. They are very un-Mac-like and typically require a high geek quotient. If you use Fink, they usually live in the sw directory at the root of your Mac OS X drive. Any of these programs can live anywhere, but in order to keep things organized, Apple came up with two folders to segregate them. Installers for classic programs generally default to the "Applications (Mac OS 9)" folder, which is created on the same volume where the Mac OS 9 System Folder is installed. Installers for Cocoa programs will generally default to the Applications folder at the root of your Mac OS X installation. Carbon installers can default to either of the two folders. It doesn't really matter where you put your programs. They'll run fine out of either folder, as long as you're running the correct operating system. Where is does make a difference is with upgrades. Most upgrade programs -- particularly the ones from Apple -- expect your programs to be in the default places, and will likely fail, if you've moved stuff around. | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be January 28. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>.
